He'll Wait
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: Sometimes the sunset just reminds her of everything that happened on the island; sometimes the sunrise just makes the whole world seem to be bloody and dangerous again. Abby/Jimmy


Sometimes the sunset just reminds her of everything that happened on the island; sometimes the sunrise just makes the whole world seem to be bloody and dangerous again. It feels like she's running through the rain and the dark, over roots and trying to avoid branches so that she can get away from the monster she hadn't known was right beside her all along.

It's almost stupid, she thinks, to be so, so thrown out of whack by something as natural as the sun rising or sinking in the distance. She had lived for many, many years without having it effect her adversely but all that changed the moment that she stepped off the island once more and onto the boat to head back to the mainland it made her feel like the sun would never be the same again. The sun would forever just remind her of all of the blood and death; it would just remind her of the people she had lost at the hands of her best friend and his sociopathic father.

There were times when the sun was getting ready to set or rise and even if she was up she would crawl under the covers and pull them over her head so she didn't have to face the sun anymore. Sometimes she would crawl into her bed on her own; sometimes Jimmy would crawl into the bed with her and cradle her against his chest, rub his hand up and down her back until she started to calm down, until he could feel the tension start to leave her. At least a little bit. (All of the tension would never truly go away; she would forever be haunted by what they had seen and the fear that had gripped them, its long, cold fingers wrapped around their necks and squeezing all of the air out of them.

It isn't often that he can even get her to talk about what happened there. Most of the time she gets this far off look in her eyes and shuts down entirely when he brings it up. She doesn't mean to shut him out, she knows that without a shadow of a doubt but there are times when she obviously can't help it. It all gets to be too much and she chokes up, her throat suddenly tight, tears glistening but unshed (she refuses to shed them) and she just turns away, looks at the wall or the TV or grabs a book off of the table and reads it without seeing the words. She does anything she can to avoid actually talking about what happened on the island, goes through great lengths to forget that it even happened. (He knows she dreams of her father hanging from that tree, though; dreams of Nikki dead on the floor, J.D. choking on his own blood on the dock, jamming the blade into Henry's gut and watching him fall over.)

He tries not to push it, tries to be patient. he doesn't want to make her talk about something she's not ready to; doesn't want to put her in a position where she feels like he's putting pressure on her, doesn't want her to think that he doesn't understand that it usually takes time to heal all wounds and that she can't be expected to just suddenly be fine. He understands that, he really does, more than she could ever imagine but he just worries about her. (He doesn't like having her wake up screaming; doesn't like to have her crying at night and hiding from the sun when it heads towards the horizon.)

He doesn't talk to her about the island either. He knows that hearing about it will only bring up worse memories for her. She'll just have to have _his_ experiences in her head as well which will just make the world seem even darker to her. (Sometimes she feels like there is a darkness taking over her entire mind; feels like all of the color is slowly being drained out of her world and no matter what she does or says the color can't come back. The palette of her life has been turned into nothingness.)

She went out and bought thick, dark curtains so that she could keep as much of the sun out as possible. She would keep the curtains drawn as often as she could during the day and only open them for a short period of time once the sun was gone so she could merely see the sky for a bit. Sometimes she could never even bring herself to open up the curtains, couldn't bring herself to turn off the lights and even though that made it feel like she was suddenly back on the island it was the only thing that kept her sand. (She would light the apartment with candles and sit with her legs curled up close to her chest on the couch so that she could comfort herself, arms around her legs, chin resting on her knees, hair falling in front of her eyes.)

Jimmy tried to be accommodating when it came to what she felt like she needed to do. He hated to see her so damaged, so cut off from who she once was but he knew that he couldn't do anything to change that. It hurt something deep within him to see her in such pain; it made something inside of him clench and feel like it will explode to see her curled into herself like that. Her whole life had turned into a great mess because her best friend had decided it would be alright to kill people, because her best friend decided it was alright to love his half-sister and try to keep the two of them trapped on an island somewhere.

All he can do is sit with her while she tries to learn how to live again, keep his arms wrapped around her, press a kiss to her temple; all he could do was hope that in time the wounds inside of her would heal, that the holes would mend and the gaping emptiness she's been feeling would suddenly cease to exist.

He hopes that one day she can stand to see the sun in all of its intensity again.

He'll wait for that as long as it takes.


End file.
